you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Tired. Hungry,” he stated simply, eyes closed and head lolling to one side. “I walked from the docks.”
“The docks?” Her eyes went wide. “The ones near Long Beach? That’s, like, fifty miles!”
“No identification,” he said hoarsely. “No money.”
The man couldn’t even stand and, good grief, Caitlyn had certainly spent enough time in the company of actors to spot one—his weakened state was real.
“Come inside,” she told him before she thought better of it. “Rest. And drink some water. Then we can sort this out.”
It wasn’t as if she was alone. Brigitte and Rosa, the housekeeper, were both upstairs. He might be Antonio, but that didn’t make him automatically harmless, and who knew what his mental state was? But if he couldn’t stand, he couldn’t threaten anyone, let alone three women armed with cell phones and easy access to Francesco’s top-dollar chef’s knives.
He didn’t even seem to register that she’d spoken, let alone acknowledge what he’d surely been after the whole time—an invitation inside. For a man who could be trying to scam her, he certainly wasn’t chomping at the bit to gain entrance to her home.
Hesitating, she wondered if she should help him to his feet, but the thought of touching him had her hyperventilating. Either he was a strange man, or he was a most familiar one, and neither one gave her an ounce of comfort. Heat feathered across her cheeks as her chaste sensibilities warred with the practicality of helping someone in need.
He swayed and nearly toppled over, forcing her decision.
No way around it. She knelt and grabbed his arm, then slung it across her shoulders. The weight was strange and, oddly, a little exhilarating. The touch of a man was alien, though, no doubt—she hadn’t gone on a date in over two years. Her mind went blank as he slumped against her.
Looping her own arm around his waist, she pushed up with her legs, grateful for the core strength she’d developed through rigorous Pilates, both before and after the babies were born.
Gracious. He smelled like three-day-old fish and other pungencies she hesitated to identify—and she’d have sworn babies produced the worst stench in the world.
The man hobbled along with her across the threshold, thankfully revived enough to do so under his own power. When she paused in front of the pristine eggshell-colored suede sofa in the formal living area, he immediately dropped vertically onto the cushions without hesitation. Groaning, he covered his eyes with his arm.
“Water,” he murmured and lay still as death.
And now for the second dilemma. Leave him unattended while she fetched a glassful from the wet bar across the foyer in Antonio’s study? It wasn’t that far, and she was being silly worrying about a near comatose man posing some sort of threat. She dashed across the marble at breakneck pace, filled the glass at the small stainless-steel sink and dashed back without spilling it, thankfully.
“Here it is,” she said to alert him she’d returned.
The arm over his eyes moved up, sweeping the long, shaggy mane away from his forehead. Blearily he peered at her through bloodshot eyes, and without the hair obscuring his face, he looked totally different. Exactly like Antonio, the man she’d secretly studied, pined over, fantasized about for years. She gasped.
“I won’t hurt you,” he muttered as he sat up, pain etching deeper lines into his face. “Just want water.”
She handed it to him, unable to tear her gaze from his face, even as chunks of matted hair fell back over his forehead. Regardless of her immense guilt over his presumed identity, she couldn’t go on arguing with herself over it. There was one way to settle this matter right now.
“Do you think you’re Antonio?” she asked as he drank deeply from the glass.
“I...” He glanced up at her, his gaze full of emotions she couldn’t name, but those dark, mysterious eyes held her captive. “I don’t remember. That’s why I’m here. I want to know.”
“There’s one way.” Before she lost her courage, she pointed to her chest over her heart as her pulse raced at the promise. “Antonio has a rather elaborate tattoo. Right here. Do you?”
It wouldn’t be impossible to replicate. But difficult, as the tattoo had been commissioned by a famous artist who had a unique tribal style.
Without breaking eye contact, he set his water glass on the side table and unbuttoned his shirt to midchest. Unbuttoned his shirt, as if they were intimate and she had every right to see him unclothed.
“It says Falco. What does it mean?” he asked.
The truth washed through her even before he drew his shirt aside to reveal the red-and-black falcon screaming across his pectoral muscle. Her gaze locked on to the ink, registering the chiseled flesh beneath it, and it kicked at her way down low with a long, hot pull, exactly the way she’d always reacted to Antonio.
She blinked and refocused on his face. The sight of his cut, athletic torso—sun browned and more enthralling than she’d ever have expected—wouldn’t fade from her mind.
That tattoo had always been an electrifying aspect of his dangerous appeal. And, oh, my—it still was.
“It means that’s proof enough for me to know you’re Antonio.” She shut her eyes, unable to process the relief flooding through his gaze. Unable to process the sharp thrill in her midsection that was wholly erotic...and felt an awful lot like trouble. Stunning, resplendent, forbidden Antonio Cavallari was alive. “And we have a lot of hurdles in front of us.”
Everything in her world had just slid off a cliff.
The long, legal nightmare of the past year as she’d fought for her right to the babies had been for nothing. Nearly two years ago, she’d signed a surrogacy agreement, but then a year ago Vanessa and Antonio had crashed into the South China Sea. After months of court appearances, a judge had finally overturned the rights she’d signed away and given her full custody of her children.
Oh, dear Lord. This was Antonio’s home. It was his money. Her children were his. And he had every right to take them away from her.
Antonio—he rolled the name around on his tongue, and it didn’t feel wrong like Falco had. Before Indonesia, he’d been called both Antonio and Falco by blurry-faced people, some with cameras, some with serious expressions as they spoke to him about important matters. A crowd had chanted Falco like a tribal drum, bouncing off the ceiling of a huge, cavernous arena.
The headache nearly flattened him again, as it always did when he tried too hard to force open his mind.
Instead, he contemplated the blushing, dark-haired and very attractive woman who seemed vaguely familiar but not enough to place her. She didn’t belong in his house. She shouldn’t be living here, but he had no clue where that sense came from. “What is your name?”
“Caitlyn. Hopewell,” she added in what
